NHS waiting list rise prompts government U-turn

The government has been forced into a major U-turn on the NHS by introducing a new waiting time target in order to tackle the growing number of patients not undergoing surgery within the promised 18 weeks.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, had previously criticised waiting times introduced by Labour in order to speed up patient care as "arbitrary Whitehall targets".

But fresh evidence that waiting times are creeping up, despite David Cameron's pledge to keep them low, emerged on Thursday, forcing Lansley to change tack and impose an additional treatment standard on the NHS.   Read Here